Help identify motet book
  • I am trying to identify what book several pieces of music came from. They all have the same aesthetic and numbering, so I figure there must be a common source. I've attached some examples (one was from the forum five years ago, the rest are from my papers). I can add more examples if necessary. A lot of mine have the top number cut off, but I know it used to be there before. Thanks for any help!
  • PhilipPowell
    Posts: 109
    I recognize a few of those scores from Oreste Ravanello's Secunda Anthologis Vocalis: https://media.musicasacra.com/pdf/secunda.pdf.
  • irishtenoririshtenor
    Posts: 1,296
    Are you sure they're from a book? They just look like someone inputted the score into Finale and printed it to me
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  • I'm not completely sure that they're from a book, it's just a guess (and hope). The numbers at the top of the O Salutaris were also present on many (or all, I don't remember) of my copies, I just removed them when scanning and cleaning up my music a couple years ago. So it seems to be a collection which someone put together, perhaps using Finale to do so.

    Some of the scores are also in Secunda Anthologis Vocalis, but not necessarily in the same key. One that really puzzles me is Ravanello's Quid Retribuam. It does not exist on CPDL or IMSLP. It has been mentioned on the forum a few times before, so obviously people know about it, and there are some recordings on YouTube too. But I can't find any scores on the internet.
  • CGM
    Posts: 683
    I'm with IrishTenor — these look like scores made in Finale by an individual, and sequenced into some sort of reference book for the choir.

    You mention that many of the scores are notated in keys distinct from the source material, and this is one of the great benefits of modern music scoring software: the ability to transpose pieces into the key that best fits the vocal forces a person has at hand. (Just this week I took a piece we sang a few years ago as an ATB group and transposed it up a bit for SAT.)
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  • CGM
    Posts: 683
    The Tallis "Bone pastor" is a contrafact of his "If ye love me," set to the penultimate verse of Lauda Sion (the sequence hymn for Corpus Christi).

    And the "Veni Creator" of Ravanello only contains the odd-numbered verses, so the expectation is probably that the choir would intersperse the Gregorian melody for the even-numbered verses (perhaps alternating men and women, for nice clear unisons).
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  • Well, perhaps you're right. If nothing else, I really wonder the original source of the Quid Retribuam. My line of thinking was, if this "book" (or collection at any rate) contains pieces some pieces which cannot be found at CPDL or IMSLP, there may be other less known gems, like Quid Retribuam, which could be of great value. That's why I'm so interested in finding the complete collection.
  • CGM
    Posts: 683
    Ravanello's "Quid retribuam" is no. 35 / pp. 48-49 in Ted Marier's "Pius X Hymnal," available on Corpus Christi Watershed here.
  • StimsonInRehabStimsonInRehab
    Posts: 1,916
    This looks like the hymnal/motet book that Incardination put together for his choir in Cincinnati.
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